Tips and Strategies to Shorten New Hire Time-to-Productivity with Employee Onboarding Training

Knowledge transfer and skills enhancement remain a key focus area of employee onboarding training. There is one metric underpinning the success of such programs—time-to-productivity. This article outlines tips and strategies for reducing time-to-productivity, highlighting the importance of highly effective onboarding training in improving the ROI of corporate training initiatives.

What Is Time-to-Productivity?

Time-to-productivity is a measure of the time taken by employees from being hired to becoming productive members of the organization’s workforce.  Along with other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) associated with HR and staffing processes, such as time-to-fill, time-to-productivity sheds light on the effectiveness of an organization’s hiring and onboarding process.

Poorly constructed employee onboarding trainings not only extend the timeline of employee productivity but also adds other risks to the staffing process: New hire disillusionment with training and resulting premature exits from the team. In contrast, well-designed employee onboarding training plans play a key role in shortening time-to-productivity.

The success of any staffing initiative lies not just in finding and hiring the right talent but also in how quickly new hires get productive. And the lynchpin to effective Time-to-productivity is the employee onboarding training that each new hire receives. In fact, the speed at which new inductees become productive often determines the Return on Investment (ROI) generated by corporate training programs at large.

Why Track Time-to-Productivity?

• Gauge Your Onboarding Process: By tracking time-to-productivity, you can assess how effectively your current onboarding strategies are performing. Knowing how long it takes new hires to attain their peak productivity allows you to identify areas in which your training programs might be enhanced.
• Assess Your Company’s Health: Time-to-productivity is a key indicator of organizational effectiveness and employee engagement. A quicker time period frequently indicates a well-organized onboarding procedure and a positive work atmosphere, both of which improve the general health of the business.
• Evaluate Employee Performance: Tracking the time-to-productivity offers valuable insights into how soon new hires reach maximum productivity. With the use of this data, you can assess how well your hiring procedure and training programs worked, making it possible to provide targeted reinforcements when needed.
• Improve Revenue: Quicker productivity directly contributes to higher revenue and lower expenses. Businesses can quickly leverage employees skills to drive profitability and reduce the costs associated with prolonged onboarding when employees meet their performance benchmarks earlier.

What Are the Factors That Influence Time-to-Productivity?

• Onboarding and Training Programs: Effective initial training and support are crucial for new employees to achieve productivity quickly. Comprehensive programs focusing on key skills can reduce the time needed.
• Complexity of the Role: The difficulty of a job and its learning curve can impact time-to-productivity. More complex roles may require additional time for skill acquisition.
• Clear Performance Expectations: Establishing and conveying well-defined objectives helps in the comprehension of new hire duties leading to quicker adjustment and enhanced focus.
• Performance Management and Feedback: Regular performance reviews and constructive feedback that identifies areas for growth and reinforces positive behaviors can be used to guide new hires in order to increase productivity.
• Mentoring and Coaching: The availability of mentors and coaches can reduce the time it takes to become productive by providing insightful advice and support from more experienced colleagues.
• Previous Experience and Skills: A new hire’s background and skill set may have an impact on how quickly they adjust. Higher productivity levels are frequently attained by those with relevant experience.
• Training and Development Opportunities: Organizations that invest in professional development can achieve faster productivity through continuous improvement made possible by ongoing learning and skill development programs.
• Supportive Work Environment: Confidence and motivation are increased in a positive work environment with support from colleagues and supervisors, which accelerates productivity.
• Organizational Culture and Communication: Time-to-productivity is significantly influenced by company culture and efficient communication. An atmosphere of cooperation facilitates the seamless integration of new hires.

What Strategies Can Shorten Time-to-Productivity Through Employee Onboarding Training?

There are a number of strategies that L&D professionals may deploy, as part of employee onboarding training programs, that are effective at shortening learning curves for newly hired employees.

Some of these include:

1. Training based on SMART Goals: The training plan must be based on SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-oriented) training objectives. Trainers and new hires must know exactly what productivity targets to hit and how long they have to achieve them.
2. Personalized training: You can’t have a one-size-fits-all employee onboarding training. Time-to-productivity is unique to each new hire (because of background, skill, and experience) and each role. Employee onboarding trainings must consider those facts.
3. Blended Learning: Because of differences in learning styles and preferences, Blended Learning, which uses a mix of online/eLearning and Instructor-Led Training (ILT), assures better productivity outcomes than 100% eLearning or an all-ILT employee onboarding training strategy.
4. Mobile Learning: Organizations may shorten new employee training time by delivering on-demand learning. And the best way to do so is through Mobile Learning solutions. Shorter training = expedited time-to-productivity .
5. Leverage Microlearning: The strategic use of Microlearning, that is, learning designed around bite-sized modules, integrated into broader employee onboarding training topics, helps fill vital knowledge gaps more effectively than 3-hour lectures or hour-long videos. Such content may be delivered offline or as sidebars within main onboarding modules, or as additional resources that newly hired staff may pursue on their own.
6. Social Learning: Facilitating learning, through peer groups in social situations, helps learners absorb new concepts and ideas better (faster) than they do in Formal training environments.
7. Interactive Onboarding: Incorporating interactive elements such as quizzes, simulations, and multimedia content in onboarding can encourage new hires to participate actively, enhance understanding, and create a positive overall impression.
8. Immersive Learning: Implementing immersive learning experiencesvia virtual reality, augmented reality, gamification, and story based learning can help enhance retention and understanding. New hires can benefit from hands-on experience through simulations and scenarios.
9. Automation and AI: Automating the administrative tasks helps streamline the onboarding process. Further, AI mentors, AI coaching, and AI-driven feedback, can be used to improve the efficiency and personalization of learning experiences for new hires.
10. People Analytics: The insights gained from data analytics can be used to optimize onboarding processes, improve new hire engagement, and overall employee experience.

Are There Any Other Tips That Can Help Compress the Time-to-Productivity Further?

You can also adopt the following tips to shorten the process of employee onboarding training and reduce the time-to-productivity further.

Tip 1: Add Pre-boarding to the process

To compress time-to-productivity even further, consider adding a pre-boarding process to new employee training. This phase could cover basic orientation topics, such as:

• Introduction to the Organization.
• Mission, Vision, and Values.
• Introduction to various offerings.
• Organization Structure.

The new hires complete the training in their own time, prior to showing up (or logging on) for formal onboarding sessions. Ideally, use Microlearning modules, delivered through eLearning, for this process.

Tip 2: Structure the employee onboarding training into smaller chunks

To move new hires through employee onboarding training and make them productive as quickly as possible, structure it into sub-components that have specific sub-objectives. Some post pre-boarding sub-components may include:

1. Additional orientation – to familiarize newcomers with the organization policies and procedures.
2. Role-specific resources and responsibilities – where new hires learn what they will do, how they’ll do it, and what tools and technologies to use to perform their job more efficiently.
3. Networking and collaboration – that empowers newcomers with information and contacts to turn to if they need help and support while doing their jobs.

Tip 3: Continue the connect and ongoing learning (after the completion of the employee onboarding training)

Additionally, best practices recommend the inclusion of multiple follow-up and refresher training milestones throughout the employee onboarding training process.

You can pick from a wide range of Performance Support Tools (PSTs) or just-in-time learning aids to provide the on-going connects. These could include:

1. Quick Reference Guides.
2. Learning Summaries.
3. Cheat Sheets or Ready Reckoners.
4. Reinforcements (typically, 30/60 days after the completion of the onboarding training).
5. Practice zones (typically, 60-90 days after the completion of the onboarding training).

How Do You Calculate Time-to-Productivity?

To calculate time-to-productivity, define what it means for a new hire to be productive by outlining what productivity entails for the specific role in question. It may involve determining understandable and measurable standards such as revenue goals, successfully managing a budget, completing training certifications,  or meeting sales targets. These criteria will ensure that the employer and new employees are on the same page.

Next, you need to identify the start and end points for the measurement period. In most cases, the start point is usually the first day at work for a new employee or on completion of initial training while the endpoint occurs when an employee attains predefined benchmarks of productivity. This clarity is imperative in accurately measuring how long it takes a newly recruited employee to achieve complete productivity.

Once you have determined your start point and end point, calculating TTP can be done with a simple formula: Time-to-Productivity  = End Point – Start Point. This computation provides number days, weeks, or months relevant for such roles. Moreover, it would be advantageous if one could investigate and contrast individual new hires’ TTP statistics against previous employees in similar roles and industry norms. The findings will help streamline any deviations from standard procedures, which can reduce the time required for induction.

To summarize,

• Expedited time-to-productivity is indicative that the organization’s broader new hire strategy, and supporting employee onboarding training, is working.
• Not only are the right candidates being identified, but they are being provided with the right training that makes them productive within reasonable timeframes.

I hope my article gives you quick and easy tips and strategies that can help you compress the time-to-productivity of your employee onboarding training programs further.